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REMEDIAL IDEAS TO REDUCE INJUSTICE AND JUDICIAL CORRUPTION
by Peter Moss

  • 1. Create a Law Victims' Commission of Inquiry [LVCI] to catalog and document all complaints of injustice and judicial corruption for the last 10 years. Only certified law victims with documented victimization may serve on LVCI.

  • 2. Compile list of victims from law victims and from judicial conduct board and case files and sort by judge, then re-open and investigate injustices inflicted on each law victim.

  • 3. Publicize item 2. to bring out victims of Judicial Conduct Board abuse.

  • 4. Jail for culprits of judicial corruption, with deterrent publicity.

  • 5. When a judge disqualifies himself or is removed for bias, vacate or reverse all of his biased decisions and rulings in that cause, not just the one on which appeal or recusal or removal was based.

  • 6. Make all lawyers -except public interest advocates- ineligible for life to become judges. First, lawyers are trained to advocate, that is win for their clients and to hell with justice, the truth, the facts, the merits, and laws that do not serve the client's interest. Then these one-sided lawyers are suddenly to become balanced, fair, objective and just judges, just by appointment by a governor or president, and anointment by a Senate advise and consent. And worst of all, judicial corruption (including bribery) is protected when a briber lawyer becomes a bribed judge, and of course they find nothing criminal or unethical or wrong with bribery since they are inured to it. Still another factor is that with telephone banking and e-mail transfers and offshore secret accounts, hard evidence of bribery is impossible to obtain, yet while we all know this, we still demand "hard evidence" of bribery instead of circumstantial evidence that if it looks like a bribe and it walks like a bribe and it quacks like a bribe, it most likely is a bribe. Still another cover-up is to call legal fees attorney work product or covered by attorney-client privilege because hourly billing rates are generally available and one could estimate if the total divided by the rate results in a reasonable number of hours or is padded by a whopping bribe on which the judge can avoid taxes. By such simple devices, bribery is now protected and encouraged. Insurance lawyers are the worst of the lot because insurers are so heavily dependent on friendly judges when they defend well-documented and highly justified claims they want to reduce or avoid. Other factors are that lawyers and judges have collegial relationships and will help each other to protect their law education investment and the "credibility" of their profession. Now, trial judges cover for defense lawyers of corporate crime, and Supreme Court "justices" rubber stamp the trial judge's outrageous injustices.

  • 7. Vermont court records should be analyzed by statisticians to determine and publicize the number of bench verdicts against underdog litigants. Most people would rather suffer injury, loss and humiliation, rather than go to court, because lawyers in and out of black robes make the system so unjust, mysterious, slow, not user friendly, and beyond external review when it fails. By discouraging ordinary people from availing themselves of the justice machinery, lawyers and judges get away with ever more abuses, and more outrageous abuses.

  • 8. Governors should nominate judge candidates only from among public interest advocates and from among jurors who have rendered just verdicts. While knowledge of the law is desirable, it is easy to ascertain what the relevant law is, compared to finding fair and just people motivated solely to ascertain the facts and administer simple justice without regard to how much justice each side can afford.

  • 9. Have juries write case law, not judges.

  • 10. Appoint volunteer retirees and volunteer unemployed and underemployed voters to serve as court monitors. Make sure 25 or more court monitors watch every trial. Monitors must be paid the hourly rate paid to trial judges and must complete a judge evaluation form and a questionnaire about the justice of the decision.

  • 11. The 6th and 7th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution mandate jury trials. Recently the U. S. Supreme Court has abolished all non-jury capital judgments, so abolish bench trials altogether, not just in capital cases. Seat a jury first, then determine the underdog/overdog status, then establish the litigation fund.

  • 12. Abolish summary judgments, failure to state a case, or dismiss claims for which no relief can be granted, and secret settlements, and all other past and future jury preclusion devices. Also, these are highly marketable devices. What corporation would not pay dearly to prevent a jury trial and enter a confidential settlement?

  • 13. Establish a judiciary duck test. If it looks like a bribe, walks like a bribe and quacks like a bribe, it probably is a bribe. At that point the burden of proof shifts to the judge who must articulate and prove a reasonable, credible and truthful explanation or be guilty of bribery.

  • 14. Codify jury nullification of statute law, case law, res judicata and collateral estoppel.

  • 15. Since each juror is a judge, the law school requirement for judgeships should be abolished as superfluous.

  • 16. Teach small claims procedure in high school so everybody can enforce his rights as an employee, consumer, homeowner/tenant, taxpayer, voter, and victim of discrimination because of gender, race, age, disability, and other illegal factors.

  • 17. Convert Royalton to a school for public interest advocates and properly motivated and just judges. In France, only lawyers go to law school. Judges go to separate judge schools and lawyers never become judges (or "lawyers in black robes"), a circumstance that has so far escaped the Vermont Legislature's notice. The Vermont Law Victims Association membership's record of experience provides ample evidence to help the Vermont Legislature consider the merits of the French system.

  • 18. In addition to categorizing litigants as plaintiffs and defendants, ascertain who are underdogs and overdogs, by a mandatory pre-trial by jury. If one side has more than 10 times the resources of the other, he becomes overdog and the other underdog.

  • 19. Next the jury establishes a litigation fund, and both sides put in money in proportion to their resources. When a $50,000 income plaintiff sues a $50-million corporation, the plaintiff pays $1 for every $1000 paid by the corporation. There is no other way to provide equal justice under law.

  • 20. The judicial retention committee should review each judge upon a second complaint from a different victim, instead of every six years.

  • 21. Create a new House Standing Committee on Impeachments [HoSCI]. No judge or lawyer or any other person subject to impeachment may ever serve on such committee. This committee shall receive each request for impeachment, and no such petition shall be subject to interception or delay or non-assignment by the Speaker of the House or any other official. Receipt of the petitions shall be acknowledged promptly to the victim, and copies of the petition shall be circulated to the 20 major print and electronic media in Vermont to garner public support to investigate the victim's complaint and sufficiency to impeach. Interfering with HoSCI in discharging its responsibility shall be an impeachable offense. A judge who commits a series of errors favoring one side and evidencing bias shall recuse himself on motion of the disfavored party. Failure to recuse for cause shall be an impeachable offense.

  • 22.Promptly after each jury verdict, each juror shall write an evaluation about the presiding judge's conduct. Canon 3B(4), Code of Judicial Conduct, requires that "a judge should be patient, dignified and courteous to litigants, jurors, witnesses, lawyers and others with whom the judge deals in an official capacity." The original of each juror's report shall be filed with the Law Victims' Commission of Inquiry [LVCI] and made available on the state website.

  • 23. Canon 3D requires "a judge who receives information indicating a substantial likelihood that another judge has committed a violation of this Code should take appropriate action." Hereafter, appropriate action shall be filing a complaint with the Law Victims' Commission of Inquiry [LVCI] promptly. Also, a judge who has information that a lawyer has violated the Vermont Code of Professional Responsibility shall likewise file a complaint with Law Victims' Commission of Inquiry [LVCI] promptly. Judges disobeying this section shall be tried as accessories after the fact, and if found guilty, shall be sanctioned and thereafter impeached.

  • 24. All statutes of limitation of time are hereby extended so every law victim is assured of simple justice. No suit may be dismissed because it is untimely, when the victim shows good cause for an extension of time. Even untimely actions must go to a jury which alone will decide whether the suit is timely in the circumstances.

  • 25. Permission to appeal must be abolished. Only the victim can decide if his victimization should be appealed. The question on appeal shall be phrased only by the appellant and the Vermont Supreme Court shall not truncate or modify it but shall consider it as submitted. All appellants shall have an opportunity to add their comments at the end of every published Supreme Court opinion, not to exceed in length the opinion.